Soyuz brings new crew to International Space Station Cast your eyes towards the heavens, dear readers, for a long way up there six astronauts did something amazing today. That thing was the connection of a Soyuz capsule to the International Space Station (ISS). Aboard were three new ISS crew: Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineers Karen Nyberg and Luca Parmitano. …
Yep. It is pretty damn cool! I was watching it streamed to my pocket size wireless phone while sitting outside, really amazing.
On a side note, those guys at the monitors looked really bored. One of them was sitting for a few minutes then just walking around aimlessly for a while. I wonder what he was supposed to be doing. I miss the signs they used to put on everything 'Launch Commander', 'Atmosphere Control' and such. Just makes for better viewing...
I was watching it streamed to my pocket size wireless phone while sitting outside
Not that I'm a fan of the genre but we really need some new science fiction. So much of the old stuff is now everyday fact.
And thanks to Simon for the article or I wouldn't have known about the live feed.
I agree completely, we do need new sci-fi. I am a fan of the stuff and there really aren't many new things happening. Mostly reboots of stories already told.
That being said I'm still kind of in awe about things like the original poster mentioned and even my phone. It is easy to be blasé about it all so I try not to be.
"WHY would you want to take an Olympic Torch on a spacewalk?"
Because you can? because it's cool? just on a whim? If people only did things out of necessity, the world would indded be a thoroughly boring and depressing place.
Also re "We're going to assume it won't be lit at the time" - why not? The only issue is lack of oxygen so bring your own oxygen. Oxy-Acetylne torches are used for underwater welding, so it's not some amazingly new technology required. Small modification to the torch and bingo, you^'re done.
Why do we need NASA TV beams, can't we get the footage directly from Russian or Kazakstanian TV? Why does NASA anyway put itself on front here, they are not shooting any astronauts into orbit anymore? The Russians are doing it better anyway, now that there is no Space Shuttle anymore, the ISS could be brought into a higher orbit, which reduced the travelling time from earth from several days to a few hours. So far to socialist design and Russian technology outlasting our oh so superior western designs.
Man, and the show they put on, back in the day, like "Commander Cole McTough single handedly docked the Space Shuttle on the ISS - a hero!! A hero!!" - By comparison, the 7 ton Kepler ATV docked itself automatically and so smoothly without any noticeable bump.
NASA has no further plans on what to do with their module after the ISS venture has finished, the Russians do.
But help is at hand, there are now many US companies building cheap, simple rockets to reach the ISS - well, we have this already, it's called the Soyuz.
It's really time to do greater endeavours for humanity than ISS astronauts spending their time tweeting and playing guitar.
Where do you get this stuff from?
The shuttle could go very high, go look where Hubble is.
The ISS is as low as possible to reduce radiation exposure.
If the Russians prefer higher orbits why did they launch Mir so low?
Also In case you didn't notice Soyuz TMA-09M was using the fast rendezvous profile:
Launch took place at 20:31:00 UTC on 28 May 2013.
Docking with the ISS occurred at 02:10 UTC on 29 May 2013.
That is less than six hours.
Saying it's orbit height or shuttle limitations is BS.
can't we get the footage directly from Russian or Kazakstanian TV?
Perhaps they aren't making it available? Perhaps they are, only NASA publicise it more? Pehaps they're doing it in local language and not English, making it slightly less accessible to non-Russian/Kazakh speakers.
Others have pointed to the other flaws in your bizarre post.
Last time I checked the ISS still had a good amount of oxygen.
If a fire does not spread, it will starve itself of local oxygen (no convection to replenish), but Fire spreads so much more easily as it is so much hotter in the localised burn area (no convection to cool) so radiates much more heat. Even when a flame goes out the gasses in the burn area remain immensely hot (no convection to disperse heat) and invisible hot areas 'bubbles' of gas are a significant danger to astronauts.
already been to space ( a replica at least) for the Sydney games in 2000
http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-072712a.html
the flame has been transmitted via satellite ( and underwater)
http://www.totalprosports.com/2012/06/01/9-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-the-olympic-torch-relay/#3
NASA has played with fire in space before
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2002/21aug_flameballs/
so if we combine all these we can use the similar principle of transmitting the flame to the station lighting a "torch" of some kind then using a similar method to "transmit" the essence of the flame back... like before I am sure they can come up with something, I will say though keeping the flame lit for anytime "outside" maybe difficult, but considering the hard part ( getting up there and living) is done I am sure intelligent people somewhere can think of a way...
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